Excerpt from Post-Carnival Fic
by Notori the Storm Wolf
Summary: 10 years after the end of the series, the HiMEs have to face off against their CHiLDs who are hunting the ones dearest to them. This moment in particular is when Shizuru must confront her past, her fears, and make the choice to end it once and for all. This is just an excerpt from a fic I can never get around to writing but I was compelled to write this scene.


*This is an excerpt of a fic I will never get around to writing. But I've had this scene in mind for months and need to express it somehow (I'd love to make a comic but again: time). I apologize for the bad writing, I just wanted to get this out of my head.

The general plot is post-Carnival the CHiLDs return and are trying to kill each HiME's most important person. Aside from the birds, they can't fly (limited access to magic). They have their elements. Only the HiME the CHiLD belongs to can deliver the killing blow (that is, breaking the bond between them so they can be banished with a true-hearted strike to kill), but others can provide some resistance and possibly deter them.

The story so far: I don't know if they'd be married or what but definitely Shizuru and Natsuki are a couple and have been for a long time (I imagine this being when they're more adults, maybe 10 years after the end of the series). Shizuru has thus far been unable to summon her element because she has a lot of fear around hurting others. She's tried but it just won't happen because subconsciously (and consciously as well) she's traumatized by what she's done in the past.

This scene begins on the tail end of their escape from Miroku (who is targeting Mai - not shipping MikoMai here, but for the friendship/sisterly bond). However, when the CHiLD is defeated, the HiME loses their element (basically the magic disappears for good) and they want Mikoto to have her claymore in order to take down the stronger ones first which is why they don't want to kill Miroku yet.

Enjoy! And I'm sorry it won't ever be made full. I have WAY too many other projects (which you can hear more about if you become a patron!)

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 **Excerpt from Post-Carnival Fic**

Natsuki's heart pounded in her chest - almost as loud as the thundering crash of Miroku's ancient iron mace crushing the road behind them. Their escape downhill had led to the harbour where the water offered refuge from the battle they could not afford to win just yet - lest Mikoto lose her element. And so, while she and Mai fought to keep the oni CHiLD at bay, Natsuki and Shizuru made a mad dash to what looked to be the fastest, most capable boat on the docks.

"HURRY!" Mai shouted from her position high above them, streaming jets of flame out from her hands before making a swift dodge through the air when being swiped at.

 _Come on! Come on!_ Natsuki had already shot off the plastic casing which protected the wires behind the steering wheel. Although, even _with_ her mechanical knowledge, hotwiring a vehicle she didn't even know how to drive - under threat of death no less - wasn't particularly simple.

There was a thud and sway of the boat when the weight of a second person was added to it. "They can't hold him off much longer!" Shizuru shouted, immediately releasing the rope which tethered the boat to the dock.

"I know! I know!" Natsuki grit her teeth, flicking her eyes up to see Mai just barely fly out of the way of an attempted grab from Miroku. She touched two wire ends together - nothing happened. _Damn it!_ Again. _Come on!_ On the third try, it sparked, and the engine gurgled under the water. And, without a second to lose, she reached up and pushed the accelerator into full throttle.

The sound of the boat taking off was all the signal Mai needed to swoop down, grab Mikoto over her shoulder and fly after the pair in the boat. Much to the latter's rage-filled chagrin, they left Miroku on the docks and landed in the backseat of the speeding vessel. The pair stared out at the CHiLD. It seemed that the smaller it got, as it faded into the distance, the more it raged with destructive frustration. Still, they were safe for now.

Natsuki had made a beeline for nowhere in particular, grateful that they hadn't needed to waste time avoiding an island - or worse, get snagged on some rocks and risk sinking. However, that good luck came to a sputtering end as they began to slow down. With a grimace, she looked first to the wires she had cut, then to the accelerator, then finally to the fuel gauge where she gave an audible growl.

"What happened?" Shizuru asked with breath still ragged from their escape.

"Out of gas." Natsuki slumped back in the driver's seat. "And stranded in the middle of the ocean. Great."

Exasperation aside, the four of them were allowed this moment to rest. Stranded, perhaps, but they also could recover from their fight. It was a silent time with only breathing and the occasional burst of life from the engine - which fizzled out after no more than a few seconds. And so, collectively, they pondered how much more peaceful their life could be drifting along in the ocean.

 _It's so quiet out here…_ Natsuki thought, closing her eyes to take it all in. It relaxed her for a minute or so, before it became more ominous than meditative. _There's… not even any gulls… Or anything…_ And just as silently, she gulped.

They bobbed along for a few more minutes - breathing, sighing, occasionally wondering how they would get back to shore. The grey sky above protected them from an otherwise bright midday sun, but the chilly breeze accompanying it warned of an incoming storm.

Thud.

All four sat up at attention, first looking around at what could have hit the boat, then to each other.

"Did we hit a rock?" Mai asked.

"I don't think so," Natsuki said, looking down at the glistening green-black water - too deep for rocks.

"Maybe it was a whale?" Mikoto offered. "Are we _that_ far out into the ocean?"

"I hope not." Natsuki groaned and stood, glancing momentarily at Shizuru's silent stare towards the floor of the boat, then out to the horizon. "Mai, how far do you think you can fly? We aren't getting out of here ourselves, and you're the only one who can reach the coast." Before Mai could answer, the boat was hit again. No more forcefully, but enough to unsteady her footing and fall back down into their seats.

"It came back!" Mikoto exclaimed, excited, looking over the edge. "It must be whales."

Mai nodded, joining her in looking over the edge of the boat for them.

Natsuki too felt a brief happiness at the thought - only to be reminded of the overbearing, haunting, silence. She didn't want to mention it, to make her fears real, but she had to. Her fist clenched at her side with a sharp, painful inhale. "... Whales need air." She said, resisting the fear in her throat. "But nothing's come up."

"Sh-sharks?" Mikoto stuttered. All of the joy drained from her face, replaced by an instinctual fear of the animals.

They were bumped again, all losing their balance once more. Except for the ever-silent Shizuru. She kept her head down, hands clasping onto the plastic seating at her sides and making a clearly forced attempt at regulating her breathing. The first calm she truly felt was when Natsuki kelt down in front of her, hand on her shoulder with a faint smile.

"We'll get out of this. It's okay."

The hope given by those words were betrayed by the heaviest hit they had yet to take. The bottom of the boat was struck hard enough to be launched off the surface of the water and land a few yards away. But the unexpected increase in force - _this_ much force - was enough to knock both Mikoto and Natsuki overboard.

Mai leapt to attention, igniting her element and hovering to Mikoto - who was lighter to carry back. Shizuru went for the rope at the back end of the boat and tossed it out for Natsuki, who was already a strong enough swimmer to make it back without too much effort. Despite being sopping wet, both of them made it back to the boat safely - relatively speaking.

Before they could finish coughing the water from their lungs, the group became eerily aware of the way the water around them began to swirl. Their eyes darted around as the boat floated up and down with the subsequent waves - and as they followed the shadowy mass beneath the surface it became increasingly clear: _It's surrounding us._

But something _this_ big was no shark, and it took them only a split second to realize that terrifying fact - and another to force themselves to believe it. In that instant, the surface of the water was torn apart from beneath by two gargantuan - metallic - serpent heads. The waves pushed the boat back away from it, but that did nothing to shrink the hydra's size.

Water poured off the violet metal as both maws wrenched themselves open, baring their silver fangs and hissing with such intensity it vibrated like a roar.

The four HiMEs were stunned by terror, unable to even gasp at the monstrosity before them. There was nary a moment's pause before Kiyohime rotated in the water, lifting a third head from the abyss while slamming another down into the water with such force it nearly flipped the boat again. There was not a second more to waste.

Mai and Mikoto had both summoned their elements - the former taking to the sky and the latter jumping onto the hood of the vessel. But both were unsuited for this battle. Mai's flames could not burn through water, and Mikoto's sword was too large to swing carelessly unless she was able to get a direct hit.

It was Natsuki who made the first move. She had faced off against this beast before - and won. Even without Duran at her side, the love in her heart - and desire to protect those she loved - fueled her battle cry as she leapt past Mikoto to the very tip of the hull, guns in hand. Icy bullets flew across the surface of the water, freezing a path to the CHiLD before hitting the side of one head.

Mikoto took the opportunity to rush forward, about to land a blow when another head smashed through the ice - knocking her off balance and back into the water.

"Mikoto!" Mai cried, abandoning her flaming jetstream to dive down and rescue her friend.

Natsuki's eyes darted back and forth, keeping her aim true save for the second she took to fire off to the side. A couple bullets landed in the water, freezing another patch of it in hopes of giving her allies some more room to fight. But she didn't even have time to see if they made it before a fourth head nearly took her out from the side. If her reflexes had been just a split second slower, she wouldn't have been able to fire two direct hits to its eye and send the head reeling back, screeching in pain.

And all the while… Shizuru could only watch. Her eyes, dulled brown and dead, shifted from friend to friend. It was a nightmare. One she had lived countless times in her sleep, which only served to remind her of the nightmare _she_ inflicted on others. _All this… because of me._ She took a trembling breath. _They will all die… because of me._

The sound of metal against metal drew her attention to the right, where Mikoto was doing her best to defend against bites three times her size. The orange glow of flame rained down over them, only to be snuffed out the moment the head Mai had been distracting hit her clean in the side, sending her skipping across the ocean like a stone.

"Mai!" Natsuki shouted, firing off another round into the water where she saw her friend land.

 _Because of me…_ The trio was far too occupied to notice Shizuru get to her feet. She trembled, more afraid than she ever had been in her life. Helplessly, her eyes reflected the truth: they were being defeated. Even three of them could not beat Kiyohime. _Her_ Kiyohime.

 _You'll kill them._ She gulped. _You'll kill all of them until finally-_ Her fingers shook at her sides. And in a flash… brown blossomed into crimson, her legs burst with energy, and - with an unbridled fury like none had ever seen - Shizuru bolted towards the head which was reared for a strike which Natsuki couldn't defend. She kicked off the bow, leaping into the air and extending her arm.

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER FROM ME AGAIN!" her shriek was echoed by a thunderclap as lightning burst from her palm, revealing the scarlet naginata just as she remembered from her nightmares.

Momentum and gravity carried her directly into the centre of this single head. She aimed the tip of the blade into the joint of its crest and slammed down with all her might. The hydra reeled back, roaring in pain and thrashing its body up from the waves. Continuing the movement, Shizuru allowed the blade to extend as she flew forward. It coiled around Kiyohime's metal neck, pulled it with her for but a moment, then sliced through it. The head plummeted into the water and the blade returned to its base form just in time for her to make the strike into the golden eye at the base of its cephalopod body.

Natsuki fell to her hands and knees - losing her guns in the process, but favouring the ability to hold onto the boat's railing when the thrashing CHiLD's body tumbled the vessel around the waves. Still, all her focus was on the sight before her. "NO!" She shouted, scrambling to get a better look hidden behind the spray of white seafoam. "Shizuru!" The last she saw of her was the girl holding on with all her might, no matter how the CHiLD wailed and threw itself against the surface.

Piercing cries nearly deafened them all, but that didn't stop her. Shizuru was blind with fury and determination. This fight, her nightmares, her past… It would all end here and now. It was them, or her fear, and she would not lose. Water resistance pushed against her as Kiyohime slammed its side into the ocean, but she only lodged the blade deeper into its eye. Soaked to the bone and cold as ice, she felt nothing more than her wrath.

 _They will not die because of me!_

"Shizuru!"

She could barely make out the sound of Natsuki calling her name before the water pressure grew in intensity. The air was pushed from her lungs as she was pulled deeper and deeper into the black. But she would not let go. Though her body threatened to break, her will would not, and Kiyohime took a different approach in its attempt to dislodge her from its eye. Now, Shizuru felt herself being dragged up to the surface with such speed it felt like her skin was tear off. But even if she were nothing more than blood and bone, she would fight.

Above the water, a frantic Natsuki - alongside her battle-ready friends - could do little more than wait and scan the surface for the moment the massive black shadow appeared beneath them. Her wide and trembling eyes never left the sight of Kiyohime breaching from the waves with a deep mechanical roar. And, irrationally, she reached her arm out in an attempt to grab Shizuru who was flung from its body clean into the air.

 _I will not break again!_

Kiyohime's main body sunk below the waves again, this time allowing all of its remaining five heads to reach up toward their former master. They hissed and screeched, but the most terrifying sight of all was the toothed, circular maw of the squid waiting for its prey to fall.

In a heartbeat, Shizuru swung her polearm around her back, building momentum for it to extend its blade once more. This time, when it wrapped around a snake head, she used it to pull herself down with enough speed that, when timed impeccably, she would barely touch the surface of the water. When she reached it, with the lightest of kicks off the surface, she recoiled her weapon's blade. Not only did it act as a fulcrum to swing her back up into the air - on her own terms - but it severed another head from its neck.

The brief moment of clarity the comes when one faces death hazed over her eyes as she looked down into the silver teeth and black void. And a flicker of sadness lit in her chest. _I loved you too, once. When you were all I had of her._ And just like that, it was doused, making way for the pure intent to kill. _But you know most of all,_ She narrowed her eyes and readied her weapon for her final attack by tucking it under her side. _That I am a monster who will stop at nothing for her sake!_

Then, with all the wrath of an angry god, Shizuru whipped the naginata out from under her arm in a horizontal arc. The blade extended and, in one fell swoop, instantly cut each of the remaining four heads from their necks as she fell.

"Shizuru!"

She smiled when she heard her named called with greater clarity and relaxed, letting gravity take her. The metal in her hand sparked away in the familiar glowing green light and she closed her eyes - landing hard in the still and empty waters.

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I wrote this because so often Kiyohime (and Shizuru) are references with snake symbols and I felt like it was time to acknowledge the aquatic, squid portion XP

Also she's not dead at the end! Just exhausted and probably in a lot of pain after that fight.

And if you're interested in seeing what projects I'm up to these days ( _Arranged_ original novel anyone? XD) head over to my twitter: notori0922!


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